'Friends' Like You've Never Seen Them Before: AI Reimagines Cast as These Adorable Babies

Luca and Anna Allievi, an Italian couple, have recently re-imagined the characters Rachel, Ross, Chandler, Monica, Joey and Phoebe from the popular American sitcom - "Friends" as toddlers. The couple has been creating re-imagined AI characters inspired by real-life celebrities, politicians and famous TV characters. According to NY Post, the creative couple started rendering AI images "for fun" while their one-year-old daughter Celeste took a nap.

"It started as a game, something we did for fun," Luca, a bio-technologist from Milan, said. "The images are really realistic." The AI pictures have since gone viral online. Anna, who works as a machine salesperson, said, "Luca has a fantastic imagination. It's something futuristic. It's evolving so fast." 

Anna continued that even though the process was not that time-consuming, the part that takes time is being able to think and imagine precisely what you want. Luca mentioned that the key is to be able to use the right words in the prompt in the right order. "You have to describe the person and adjust the prompts as the software evolves. It's evolving so fast."

The Sun reported that the artistic couple has been using the software 'Midjourney' to create AI replicas by referencing billions of images online. Midjourney is an artificial intelligence program that generates the desired images from natural language commands, known as "prompts". Before re-imagining real-life characters, Luca wanted to create dog and cat images. However, the couple has been basking in praise from their followers over the famed sitcom characters reimagined as toddlers. 

Luca and Anna also generate images as per fan requests. So far, the couple has created Harry Potter characters, Disney baby villains, famous politicians, and toddler characters from "The Office", "Stranger Things" and so many more. As much as they enjoy re-imagining the characters, the couple is also aware of the harmful implications of AI technology. Anna mentioned, "Sometimes it's scary and too specific." Luca also added, "It can be dangerous. Some people use it for fake news."

Anna and Luca revealed that their one-year-old daughter is "very interested" and loves all their creations. Meanwhile, there have been a few cases of fake pictures generated by AI of celebrities and historic personalities. The recent one was a fake AI-generated photo of Selena Gomez circulating online, which became one of the most liked pictures. The imagined picture showcased Gomez at the 2023 MET Gala as she was seen wearing a sheer one-shoulder dress with blue pearls. 

However, the "Only Murders in the Building" actress was not part of the MET Gala this year. It came to be known that the AI-generated image had doctored Gomez's face on Lily James' 2022 MET Gala look by Versace, with the outfit edited to a different shade of blue. 

So, while we may all question the overwhelming power of AI today, we can hardly deny the cute quotient of these AI generated photos.